Mottram St Michael

The Goddard family is one of the oldest of those linked to Mottram-in-Longdendale in Cheshire and one that is connected in many ways to my Rhodes family. As with many long established families, the difficulty is proving who is linked to whom, and in what way. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a Goddard in a Mottram record and thinking ‘it must be one of mine,’ but without being able to prove a link

My research so far indicates that my earliest Goddard relative was my six times great grandfather, Thomas Goddard, born about 1711 in Mottram. He had a son, John, born about 1741, having been baptised at St Michael’s on 18 June that year. He married Betty Hibbert, daughter of John Hibbert in 1783 and they had seven children. Each of these takes me along threads that lead away from mine, so I shall concentrate on their third child and my four times great grandfather, Miles Goddard.

Miles was born about 1787. When he was baptised on 20 April 1787, written above the record in the register on the same date is the word 'Visitation'. This was when the Bishop would go to the church to ensure that the Vicar was carrying out his duties correctly. So it is possible that Miles was baptised by the Bishop, or at least that the ceremony was overseen by him.

He married Peggy Shepley on 22 August 1810 at St Michael’s. He could write and the witnesses were John Shaw and it is interesting to speculate whether he was related to Christopher John Shaw who married Betty Braddock in 1897.

At the time of the 1841 Census, Miles described himself as a ‘farmer,’ although he was then at the Hare and Hounds public house. (See tithe map) He became landlord there about 1823, from the church baptism records for two of his children that switch from ‘weaver’ to ‘publican’ between these dates. He took it over from his brother Thomas after he died, leaving no widow.

Miles died in 1850, but the Hare and Hounds remained in Goddard hands for 40 years more, first through his wife, Peggy, then son John, his widow, Ellen, and later grandson Miles. It appears that the beer was brewed on site from Miles' will in which he specifically gifts John his "brewing untensils."

Miles and Peggy had 12 children, and it is at this point that family lines become a tad convoluted. Not every detail can be gone into here, so I shall mention those that appeal to me.

John Goddard
First, Miles’ first surviving child and eldest son was John, born in 1812. He married twice, first to Martha Hamilton in 1834 and then to Ellen Yellott in 1850. John was working in the mines as a ‘banksman’ in the 1851 Census, but was later describing himself as a ‘farmer’ and ‘publican’ when he took on the Hare and Hounds on the death of his mother. However, it is his wife that is of interest.

The White Hart today

Ellen Yellott was born in Wadsley/Ecclesfield, Sheffield, about 1813. She married Joseph Senior in 1835, and they possibly had a child, Sarah Jane, in 1841. There is no indication that the child survived. But Joseph did not, and in 1850 Ellen married John Goddard. How she came to Mottram isn’t clear, but they had a son, Henry Yellott Goddard, and she went on to become publican after John’s death in 1875.

So why the interest? In the 1871 and 1881 Censuses, there was an Ellen Yallott living at the Hare and Hounds, in each case described as ‘niece’ and having been born in Australia. In the 1881 Census for Matthew Rhodes, husband of John Goddard’s sister, Jane, there is a Herbert Yallott, ‘farm servant,’ born Australia, and you can begin to sense a connection.

It transpires that Ellen and Herbert were brother and sister, children of Henry Yellott who emigrated to Australia around 1850 arriving on 30 September 1852 on board the Ascendant which sailed from Liverpool. He and his wife Ellen had eight children, of which at least three died young, more likely five, but three survived. Their parents died within 18 months of each other in 1865 and 1866, and somehow, Ellen, Harriet and Herbert found their way home. How they did it is a mystery, but all trekked to Rochdale eventually. See the Yellott Mystery.

John's widow, Ellen, married for a third time in 1881 to Jonathan Hadfield by civil marriage in Stockport. She was then aged 68 or 69 and died less than two years later.

Betty Goddard
Miles’ eldest daughter, Betty, married Joseph Braddock in 1833 at St Michael’s and All Angels, Ashton-under-Lyne. The Braddock family originated in Derbyshire and came to Mottram to run the Mottram coal mine which closed in the 1860s. Until then, it employed almost exclusively BraddockS, Rhodes and Goddard family members.

They had eleven children, and the fifth, Mary, married her cousin, Miles Goddard Rhodes, brother of my great, great grandfather, George, and eldest son of George Rhodes and Margaret Goddard.

Margaret Goddard
It is Miles’ fifth child that is my direct link to the Goddards. Margaret married my great, great, great grandfather, George Rhodes, at All Saints, Glossop, in 1835. They had seven children, the first son being Miles Goddard Rhodes mentioned above. Margaret died in childbirth in 1848 when she and George were living at Woodhead during the construction of the second Woodhead rail tunnel, where he ran a beerhouse and a stone quarry. The child, Margaret survived, but she never lived with her father.

George married another of Miles’ daughters, Charlotte, again in Glossop, and less than three months after Margaret’s death. The couple had nine children, giving George a total of 16! Mention of the two marriages is made in a later insolvency case, particularly in terms of some sort of marriage settlement of £40 for each marriage to the Goddard girls that has yet to be explained.

Jane Goddard
Miles’ ninth child provides another Rhodes link. Jane Goddard married Matthew Rhodes, another of George’s brothers. Although Matthew worked much of his life as a miner, as did his brothers, by the time of the 1881 census, he described himself as a “farmer,” living at Lower Mudd, Mottram, and was there in 1891 where he died in 1897 at the age of 73.

Fanny Goddard

The Black Bull

The youngest daughter of Miles Goddard was Fanny and she connects to the Nuttall family who arrived in Mottram in the mid-1800s from CrawshawBooth, Lancashire, to work in the textile printing industry. Fanny married John Nuttall at St Michael and All Angels, Ashton-under-Lyne in 1849. He was Sexton at St Michael’s, Mottram, from the 1870s until the 1890s, and was retired by the 1901 census.

Their eldest daughter, Margaret Ann, was the last landlady of the Black Bull’s Head Inn, built into the side of the churchyard at St Michael’s, before it was eventually closed by the vicar who disapproved of alcohol on the premises!. John and Fanny’s youngest daughter, Emily, married Ervin Booth, local dialect poet, and the couple were pictured in Mottram in Old Photographs. In 1891, Emily was living with her sister, Margaret Ann, at the Black Bull’s Head, aged 19.

Here is an example of Charles' poetry, Th' Owd Village Green. Also see the extract from Longdendale and Glossopdale compiled by Bill Johnson.

All in all, the Goddards are of great interest to me, and I have managed to find a few modern day descendants. If you recognise any of the above, please contact me through the link below.